Life
UPDATED: 16:28, June 30, 2004
Imbalance gender ratio a worry of China
The high gender ratio has become a serious problem in China, sources from the National Population and Family Planning Commission says. The head of commission points out that the commission has taken the problem as a major task for the time being.
Gender ratio of newborns refers to the ratio of male newborns to female ones. The ratio is 119.92 in the China's fifth census in 2000. That is to say at the same time 100 female infants are born, nearly 120 male newborns are born. This number is much higher than the normal ratio from 130 to 107. Statistics provided by the commission show the ratio in 2000 ( 119.92) is 8.5 percentage point higher than that of 1990. It is 14 percentage points higher than normal figure.
The abnormally high gender ratio has drawn attentions from experts and scholars home and abroad once again. Experts point out the underlying reason for the imbalance ratio is traditional Chinese thinking that stresses the importance of males and ignores the role of the females. But such a thinking is far behind economic growth and social development. Incomplete social security system in rural areas, backward productivity, traditional culture of male dominance and gender inequity in society are other reasons for this thinking.
A direct cause for the high gender ratio is the ender-distinguishing techniques and selective induced labor.
If the high ratio remains unchanged, the so called "marriage squeeze" problem will emerge, i.e. some young men cannot find spouses. At the same time, a series of negative social problems including rise of bachelors, incrsease of sex outside marriage and human abduction will be triggered.
To curb the continuous rise of the gender ratio, experts suggest that work be done in aspects of legislation, execution of laws, education at school and supervision of public opinion; further eliminate sex discrimination and set up new bearing concept; put more efforts in combating illegal gender distinguishing before bearing.
By People's Daily Online
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